


Ice Cream Sunday

by Jackie Thomas (Jackie_Thomas)



Series: Ice Cream Sunday [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Godfathers to the world, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, non-graphic reference to torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 15:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20449604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackie_Thomas/pseuds/Jackie%20Thomas
Summary: Outside the Coach and Horses, a sword clatters to the pavement and a lone angel lifts a demon into his arms.“Oh dear,” says the angel.





	Ice Cream Sunday

There is no more pain. This is the first thing Crowley notices when he regains consciousness. There had been pain. His body backs frantically away from the memory of it. A hand gentles him to stillness. 

“You’re quite safe now.” 

Aziraphale. The only being who would give a fig whether he is safe or not, the only voice he cares to hear. 

The second thing he notices is Aziraphale’s proximity. Crowley is sprawled across him and neither are dressed. They are chest to chest, skin to skin and two arms hold him firmly. This, he understands, is why he feels only peace. 

Aziraphale has them floating. A few feet off the ground but not travelling; holding in place, a raft on a calm sea. His wings reach around Crowley, brush lightly against the bare skin of his back. He can smell their birdy warmth mingled with the brilliant, bright, singing scent of an angel. 

An angel with a lingering tarnish of Hell. 

Hell. He forces himself to open his eyes. The room is filled with light. Not exactly Earthly, but enough to know he is no longer in the place of eternal darkness. 

He shields his eyes, “What’s that?” 

“Oh!” Says the angel. “Oh! The sword. I’d better – I’ll be back in a jif.” 

For a moment - _a jif _\- he is gone, leaving Crowley alone. 

_Stay conscious while we peel off your skin, stay alive while we tear out your heart, chop you to bits, feed you to beasts_. 

Aziraphale returns, gathers him back up and it stops, “I won’t leave again,” he says. “I promise.” 

He reels in his scattered self, cleaving to Aziraphale. 

“I gave the sword to a human,” says the angel. “She was a bit put out. She wasn’t happy about taking it on the bus. But it ought to put the lights back to normal. I do hope so.” 

“Your sword?” Another, more shocking, memory rises up, “You were there.” 

“Just rest. We can talk about it when you’re well again.” 

“You _were_ there.” 

Memories flood in now. The filth of a torture chamber, the bloody jaws of the hounds, a pack of demons upon him. And Aziraphale. Impossible. This is all impossible. An illusion. Raw pain breaks through. He scrambles away from the next blow before it comes. 

“You’re not there, Crowley,” Aziraphale says reading his mind, steadying him again. “You’re home. You’re with me. No one is going to hurt you again.” 

He hears the distress in the other’s voice. It can’t be an illusion because Hell couldn’t duplicate that. 

“You came for me,” he says. 

“Hush now, of course I did. And I think, it’s better if you sleep, don’t you?” 

He touches Crowley’s forehead and out he goes. 

*~* 

His dreams, improbably, suspiciously, are of what he likes best and when he wakes, he finds himself among the softest of Aziraphale’s feathers. He is by his side now, under his arm and they are still floating; rocking pleasantly together in the empty air. 

“Oh, hello,” says the angel. 

It stops raining. On the landscape of his heart, all granite and mud, it stops raining. 

More aware of his surroundings now, he finds they are in his own flat. It had lost its form during his recent indisposition; reverting to its natural state of damp cleaner’s cupboard, but it is rebuilding itself as he recovers. The walls and floors are shifting into place, La Gioconda gazes laughingly down at him. 

Across the river, Big Ben’s clock strikes once, the moon is full, round and gleaming and the world spins out the year unhindered. 

_It turns._

He reaches around the Earth with his mind, feels the heartbeats of the great human cities, hears the winds sighing at the poles, the salty chuckle of the oceans, the hum and buzz and patter of the forests, the shriek and howl of every living thing suffering through the tiny Armageddons of birth and life and death. It floods through him, propels the blood through his veins. He could disappear. He could disappear, somersaulting and spiralling into the gaps between the electrons of the world. 

“Come back,” Aziraphale whispers. 

“It _turns_,” Crowley breathes. 

“Dear man. Stay with me.” 

When Crowley first moved to London in the early sixteenth century, drifting into town in Aziraphale’s wake, it was to Southwark. The borough was, at that time, outside the city’s official boundary with a lawless reputation well suited to a demon’s abode. 

Aziraphale lived on the north bank of the river, among the booksellers and pamphleteers of St Paul’s Churchyard. He regularly crossed the Thames for the entertainments, for a favourite baker and her honeyed fruit tarts, for the equally superb creations of her son, grandsons and great granddaughter as the centuries fell away. 

They usually met in some discrete place when he came. To talk business, to drink, to argue the afternoon into oblivion. 

One September evening in the seventeenth century, an Eastcheap fire, burning for two days already, began to spread. Amid the chaos of fleeing Londoners, Crowley paced the riverbank, imagining all that could happen to an angel in a wooden building full of paper in a burning city. 

Finally, one angel and a dozen rescued street urchins bumped up to the bank in a rowing boat that had been, until recently, a discarded oyster shell. He’d had time to gather only his most precious books before his shop was destroyed. The children scattered and Aziraphale let Crowley take his hand and help him ashore. 

From the balcony of a riverside inn, with a replenishing jug of wine between them, they watched London burn. When the cathedral itself succumbed, Crowley had taken Aziraphale home. The next morning, he came to on the black flagstones of his house with an angel’s head at rest on his shoulder. 

Crowley had created a bookcase with a finger snap. It was polished oak and its doors and sides were carved with climbing grapevine, presumably because he was still half drunk. Its beauty took him by surprise. 

“Stay with me,” he said. 

Aziraphale gazed at the bookcase, “This mustn’t happen again,” he said. 

They had, on reflection, been fortunate Heaven and Hell were looking elsewhere that night. 

The angel did not return until another bookshop burnt to the ground three and a half centuries later. By then, Crowley had been ordered to neighbouring Lambeth where he lived next door to the Archbishop of Canterbury and kept watch on the energies rising from the Houses of Parliament across the river. 

By then their connection was no secret. 

That second night was almost sober. They sat side by side at Crowley’s table and awaited retribution. Aziraphale looked out at Westminster’s clear night sky, Crowley looked at Aziraphale. He took his hand and held it to his cheek. Oddly, the angel did not stop him. 

*~* 

The last good memory. They have finished lunch and are strolling back to the new old bookshop for a drink. London is having a chilled out, sunny Sunday afternoon. They are together, the world turns, there is nothing else. He should have known. 

Berwick Street dissolves. The stink of scorched air and sulphur, the rank stench of Hastur and he is taken, sucked down into Hell. Handed over to the inflictors of bespoke pain. 

“You betrayed our Master, Crowley. You betrayed Hell. This should have been our moment; we should have been riding the skies in triumph.” 

You’re going to pay. You’re going to suffer as no being has before and it’s going to last for eternity.” 

These fuckers don’t fuck around. This is what Hastur lives for, and he has hated Crowley for a long time. It is the sort of supernatural agony that takes a demon apart and inflicts a unique injury to each of his atoms. And because time does not exist in Hell, it does it forever. 

Crowley reverts to serpent and bites, to monster and roars. But after hours or days or a thousand years, he focuses on holding the shape of Crowley. Because when Hastur looks at him, he’s going to have his shades fucking on. 

“What you’ve endured,” Aziraphale says. 

He is reading Crowley’s mind again. He does that when he’s tired. 

“Are you tired, angel?” He asks. 

“A little.” 

“You shouldn’t have done it.” 

“Nonsense.” 

Aziraphale. Standing between him and Hastur, between him and the hounds, between him and the demons sent to torment him. He swats them all away, one after another. 

He thinks of Aziraphale. More than he should. The angel does not relish battle as others of his kind do. He is an ideas man, one for the reasoned argument, the conciliatory approach. Crowley’s angel is a drinker of tea, an eater of biscuits, and, if not carefully watched, a dancer of the Gavotte. 

His angel does not materialise in the dark heart of the abyss, wings proud, in robes of burning light and pick a fight with the whole of Hell. 

“I am the Principality Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate. Allow me to leave with Crowley and you’ll come to no harm.” 

“I’ll show you harm,” Hastur screams. “You’re going to spend the next millennia watching the harm I do to this creature of yours. After that I’ll make a pillow from your feathers and send you back to Heaven a piece at a time.” 

“Get out,” Crowley hisses. “Go home, Aziraphale.” 

But the angel doesn’t listen. When did he ever? 

“How do you propose to achieve this feat?” Aziraphale asks as though earnestly interested. 

“Hell is ready for you, principality. An army is summoned.” 

“I see.” 

Aziraphale reaches into the air, reaches back into time, and unsheathes a sword. 

A flaming sword. Twice in a week. Every light on Earth goes out. 

They back away. The demons of Hell. Despite the names Hastur calls them, despite his orders and threats. A fiery sword in the hands of an angel; most of them can’t even look at it. 

With his free arm Aziraphale hauls Crowley to his feet. The angel’s touch is a couple of shots of whiskey to Crowley’s broken body, but he is delirious and no help. 

“Better get a wiggle on,” he says and passes out. 

*~* 

He really, _really_ should have been awake for the next bit because when he opens his eyes, they are back in Soho, the planet’s lights are still out and it’s all about to kick off. 

The humans on the street look up into the star-strewn night. Some fall to their knees, some, the smart ones, run. 

Crowley follows their shouts and pointing fingers as well as he can. Sees Gabriel and the archangels, Beelzebub and Hell’s aristocracy. Flights of angels bathed in the cool light of paradise, swooping down over Soho Square. The legions of the damned rising up on Greek Street, a ragged army dragging a sky full of storm clouds. 

Outside the Coach and Horses, a sword clatters to the pavement and a lone angel lifts a demon into his arms. 

“Oh dear,” says the angel. 

Word has spread; Heaven entered Hell uninvited. This can never be anything other than invasion. This cannot be borne. 

“Fuck,” Crowley says. He tries to remember but, even held like this, he was too injured to stay conscious for long. “Aziraphale, what the fuck happened?” 

“Swords were raised, the order to attack was given.” 

“The bastards finally got their war.” 

“There was no war. There was an – intervention.” 

“Who intervened? There’s only Heaven and Hell.” 

“The child.” 

“Adam was there? With the - the Famous Five?” 

“Not physically present. But he is a remarkable boy and I have no other explanation for what occurred.” 

“Which was?” 

“All weapons on both sides transformed.” 

“Into?” 

“Ice cream cones.” 

“Ice cream? What the fuck.” 

“Must you, Crowley?” 

“Sorry. Tell me. Ice cream.” 

“In a number of different flavours.” 

“But we’re angel stock, we don’t need weapons to fight.” 

“All attempts to wage war ended in ice cream. They tried to keep going, of course, but the armies were in disarray and there was no choice but to retreat. I thought it would be a good moment for us to disappear too, but Gabriel and Beelzebub noticed us.” 

“You were alone. I wish I could have helped.” 

“Come now,” Aziraphale says softly. 

“Had their weapons changed?” 

“Raspberry Magnums, I believe.” 

“They probably weren’t even grateful.” 

“In fact, my sword was the only unaltered weapon. They concluded from this that I was responsible for what had happened. They appeared awed by my – er - formidable powers.” 

“I hope you didn’t feel obliged to enlighten them.” 

“I didn’t actually lie.” 

“Naturally.” 

“They assumed we had something planned which would endanger the established power balance.” 

“They thought we were after their jobs, the fu-fudgers.” 

“There followed rather a lot of proclaiming. Gabriel said peace had always been Heaven’s intention. It’s all right, Crowley, you can swear.” 

“I’m actually speechless, go on.” 

“I was surprised too. He said this day would be remembered in the Histories for eternity.” 

“Right. Did he name the day Ice Cream Sunday?” 

“He did not.” 

“I have to do everything myself.” 

“The long and the short of it, they offered a deal. They told me to name my price.” 

“What did you say?” 

“Can you even ask? After everything I had just seen. I said I wanted your safety guaranteed.” 

An invisible hand squeezes his heart, “You could have had anything. Everything.” 

“I asked for all I wanted. And it was granted. Anyway, Gabriel was clear this went for both of us. We won’t turn the universe to dessert and they will leave us be.” 

“We’re free?” 

“Of Heaven and of Hell.” 

But Aziraphale is uneasy about something, “So what’s wrong?” 

“I felt I had no choice but to agree on your behalf. Our freedom is contingent upon our remaining on Earth. We can’t go home.” 

“You think I want to go back to Hell?” 

“No, I suppose not.” 

“Where’s home, Aziraphale? If not here.” 

“Yes, I do see what you mean.” 

_With who, if not you? _“But Heaven, I’m so sorry.” 

“To be truthful, I find myself relieved. And we say, God is in all things. It’s not true exile if one thinks of it that way.” 

“That’s right,” he says gently. “That’s the way to think of it.” 

*~* 

Aziraphale stills beneath him. His wings, which have been idly creating and caressing currents of air, come to a halt. 

Crowley realises what has stalled him. His own hand of its own accord has set fingers exploring the unknown territories of this principality. They are at hipbone when he catches them, touching to at last know the feel of him, to hear the small, soft gasp provoked. His human body calling to Aziraphale’s but succeeding only in startling it. 

He retrieves the hand and lays it flat on that broad chest. Aziraphale covers it with his own. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “Did you always have a grandfather clock?” 

“Never, why?” 

“I thought not. You’ve got one now.” 

The room is still shapeshifting, seemingly unable to stabilise, but he sees the clock, a scuffed antique in honey-coloured wood, determinedly unmoving. 

“It’s the flat. Sometimes it likes to get creative.” 

He waves the clock out of existence. 

“Pity,” Aziraphale says. “It was like mine. Until Adam improved it with a cuckoo, of course.” 

“Don’t encourage it or it’ll start putting up tasselled lampshades and shepherdess wallpaper.” 

“There was nothing when I brought you back. Your chair, your art, the plants, that was it. Not even rooms. No bed for you to lie in, no water to wash you with. If ever I needed a reminder -.” 

“I know, I do know.” 

A hand comes to rest in his hair and a quiver of feathers sets them in motion again. 

“Are we unemployed now?” he asks. “The tempting and the blessing?” 

“No longer our concern.” 

No more tangling the threads of human lives, no more meddling, no more half-hearted incitement to futile wickedness. He contemplates this strange turn eternity has taken. 

“What’ll we do with ourselves? We’re too young to retire. I could help you in the shop.” 

“That seems unwise.” 

“I suppose.” 

“Anyway, I believe we do have work to do.” 

“What work?” 

“The son of Satan is still on Earth. He may have claimed back his humanity but he is, as he has demonstrated, in possession of his powers. He will be in need of guidance from those who understand who he is. Heaven and Hell might have forgotten him, but we must not.” 

“You’re saying godfathers, again?” 

“But without making a complete hash of it, if at all possible. And Crowley, after everything that has happened, we must be vigilant on behalf of humanity.” 

“Get ready for the next Big One, you mean?” 

“There are those who will always see humans as nothing more than pawns in a foolish game. We cannot leave them and the other creatures on this planet undefended again.” 

“But I’m still a demon. Defending humans - not really my bag.” 

“Of course, I understand.” 

“But if I’m not busy, I don’t mind helping you out.” 

Which makes Aziraphale laugh. Ineffable Aziraphale. In his great plan, the two of them will be there for the next battle, whatever form it takes. Not on the side of the angels, or the devils but cheering on the humans. And if its anything like last time, getting in the way and falling over their feet. 

“Two drunk uncles at a wedding,” he suggests. “The sequel.” 

“I hope we can be more to them than that,” Aziraphale says quietly. “I believe we were.” 

They had seen it coming from a distance, heard its roaring, screeching engine. The immense, fire-spitting war machine. They had messed up and lost faith, but in the end, they had held hands with some ragtag humans, with the renegade son of a renegade angel, with each other, and put themselves in front of it. 

“Godfathers to the world, then?” 

“Godfathers to the world,” the angel agrees, pleased with the idea. 

*~* 

“How are you, old friend?” Aziraphale asks. “Am I tiring you with all my chitchat?” 

“I’m fine now. Healed,” he admits. “Better than new.” 

“I’m so very glad to hear it.” 

It means they will have to part, of course it does. He doesn’t know how he will stand it. He’s been on this planet too long, he’s gone native; only humans fall in love, only humans fall in love with people who don’t even like them. 

This thought does not pass unheard either, “You must forgive me,” Aziraphale says. “I have been so blind.” 

“Forgive you? You followed me into Hell.” 

“Crowley. May I – can we stay like this? For a little longer?” 

He has to pause, to check he heard correctly. 

“If you like, angel. Anything you like.” 

Crowley turns them both, and with his own dark wings, takes charge of keeping them afloat. The angel rests his head on Crowley’s chest, closing his eyes. 

What does he see when those pale lids close? This being who never sleeps, who chooses never to close down reality. Is he seeing Hell’s dark cavern? Is he seeing the parts of Crowley he was required to reassemble there? Is this why he is still holding tight? To make sure the glue of his repair sets fast. 

*~* 

The sun is high when Aziraphale opens his eyes again. Crowley had settled his arms around him hours ago. They are still there, no objection having been raised. Has he at last found a use for them, these pointless, gangling limbs of his? Human bodies, he is discovering, can fit together in many different and interesting ways. He halts these meandering thoughts, of spoons and forks, before Aziraphale picks up on them too. But the angel’s attention is elsewhere. 

“I hate to tell you,” he says. “But you have a sofa.” 

“No, I don’t. Where?” 

He finds himself looking at Aziraphale’s back-shop couch, or one like it. It is draped with throws and cushions in the shades of ivory and gold the angel favours. A faded Persian rug has appeared on the floor in front, botanical prints in antique frames hang on the wall behind. 

His flat, he realises, has been reading the signs. He finally catches up with it. 

“Live with me,” he says. 

“I’d like that,” the angel replies. “I’d like that very much.” 

He can’t speak, all he can do is hold tighter. 

“You old serpent,” Aziraphale says, but fondly. 

They watch as a silk wall-hanging joyfully decorates itself with a design of colourful birds. 

“Crowley, you’re really very -.” 

“Nothing to do with me, I don’t embroider.” 

Aziraphale smiles down at him, “That’s not in the least bit true.” 

“I mean, I don’t have any current projects, okay.” 

“Bukhara, wasn’t it? You’re so clever with your hands; you should take it up again.” 

“It’s hardly demonic. But you’ve got to do something once the snow comes.” 

“That was quite the winter. Thirteen hundred years ago, if you can believe it.” 

“That Remedies shop you had. Right on the Silk Road. One of the crossroads of the planet. Humans everywhere. You never get fed up of them, do you?” 

“I don’t suppose I do. No more do you.” 

“They have their moments.” 

“You know, I still have the scarf you - you left behind at my house.” 

“You do?” 

“Oh yes, it’s terribly fragile now, of course, but it’s so beautiful. And it was something of you. All those decades when I never saw you.” 

“You could always have found me. I was never far away.” 

“That would have required admitting to myself I wanted to.” 

There is a pop as the air in the room shifts for a bookcase. Folded into space since 1666, it remains the most impressive of Crowley’s drunken creations, crafted as it was from hope and need; the purest, most exquisite materials. 

“The time we’ve lost,” Aziraphale says. “I’m so very sorry.” 

“Don’t be, we weren’t free.” 

“And now? My dearest love.” 

It is the human body he lives in shoving him forward, like a schoolgirl on a dare, taking the angel’s face in his hands. Aziraphale gasps ‘oh’ and kisses him back. And kisses him back. 

Angel and demon. Impossible. They do - they do explode. 

This flesh and blood habitation of Crowley’s, with its baffling demands and absolute imperatives, is jubilant. But he is suddenly remembering too, how it was to be an angel; to hear the songs of the universe and ignite the stars with his fingertips. 

*~* 

He becomes distantly aware of colour. Colour where there is normally monochrome. He tries to ignore it; the only colour he has any interest in is the precise shade of Aziraphale’s eyes. Except it has caught his attention too. 

“Good heavens, Crowley, look.” 

He tears himself reluctantly away and is immediately thrown into a state of panic. 

_This is not his flat._

_He doesn’t know where they are. _

_They must have been taken again._

Is this another prison cell? A torture chamber disguised to trick them? Have Heaven and Hell broken their bargain already? 

He has them on their feet, dressed and ready for a fight before Aziraphale can capture him back. 

“Can’t you feel it, Crowley? It’s so strong, you must.” 

Pressed against Aziraphale, already regretting the clothes he has burdened them with, he tries to feel what the angel feels, tries to let himself be soothed. 

“Love?” He hazards. 

“You made this place with your beautiful love,” Aziraphale tells him. 

“Are you sure? How do you know?” 

“This is your home; I can feel it. And look, there are your plants, your picture.” 

He does find his plants. They have acquired a conservatory and some leafy white flowers, but he recognises them, richly green among a host of showy newcomers. The Leonardo is there too. It hangs above a fireplace; just a Florentine noblewoman, as calm and serene as ever she was. Little else is familiar. 

The steel and concrete have gone. The walls are made of roughly hewn stone and the rug-strewn floors and window frames are painted wood. Da Vinci is joined by Raphael, Gentileschi, Caravaggio and others he can’t immediately identify. A staircase leads to an upper floor. Another leads down to a cellar where, he is certain, wine bottles have recently gathered the dust of decades. There are two armchairs turned toward the fireplace, ready for winter, but here at summer’s end, the room floods with golden light. 

And there are flowers everywhere. In pots and vases. Bright and fragrant. On every surface, crowding every corner, they climb around the window frames and scatter petals across the floor. Gerbera daisies and cyclamen, African violets and Christmas Cactus. Overflowing pots of orange velvet blooms, he has seen before only on Proxima Centauri. 

He doesn’t have it in him; this scene from a dream, this is an angel’s work not a demon’s. He says as much and Aziraphale calls him a _silly sausage_ and tells him, in which case, they must have made it together. 

A tabby cat leaps off Aziraphale’s sofa and runs out into a garden which, like all gardens, is still being made. Already there are hollyhocks and sunflowers, poppies and lavender, and roses, roses, roses. 

Aziraphale takes Crowley by the hand and leads him outside. They stop to watch a newly created patch of lily plants grow tall, bud and unfurl flame-coloured petals. He calms himself watching it, rights himself, for now, at least. 

“How are you?” Aziraphale asks. 

“Fine. I mean, a disaster, obviously. The same.” 

“I’m glad we cleared that up.” 

He watches a snail inching its way toward the lilies and dissuades it with a thought. 

“I’m fine. And thank you. Don’t tell me not to say it. Thank you. And I love you. I love you.” 

Aziraphale beams at him as if he were the walking miracle, “And I you,” he says. 

Aziraphale kisses the knuckle of his hand and then cautiously releases it. When he is sure Crowley no longer needs him in any urgent way, he wanders off to spread his wings in a sunny spot. 

“Crowley,” he says, calling him over. “Your throne, its here.” 

The tarnished metal of the chair is just visible under a thick growth of ivy, colonised from the wall behind. A band of chirruping sparrows land on it before flying away to a more promising spot. 

“You can easily miracle all that away,” says Aziraphale. “And bring it back inside.” 

“It isn’t that great a chair, to be honest. You can’t get comfortable on it.” 

“I rather thought that was the point.” 

Handcrafted in the workshops of Hell from pure gold and pure bad taste, it had been his reward for the Great War. Which was _nothing_ to do with him. He had got drunk in Sarajevo in 1914 and only sobered up at Armistice. All that time, Aziraphale had been nursing the injured and dying on the frontline in France. He had vowed never to fail him like that again. 

He’ll throw the chair into a furnace first chance he gets, melt it down, and let Aziraphale pick the orphans and sick kids to benefit. 

Aziraphale has stretched his wings out again to shake them. He, like the house, is attempting to rid himself of the remnants of Hell. 

“Here, let me do that.” 

Aziraphale closes his eyes in appreciation as Crowley moves his hand over the span of his wings and then over the rest of him. A scattering of silvery dust comes away. Both of Heaven and of Hell, he supposes. It is always pure coal dust when he does this for himself. 

“That place needs a good scrub down with bleach,” Aziraphale says. 

“I’ll pass your comments on to the management.” 

They watch warily as the dust, the silver dust, begins to swirl at their feet, gathering with it a handful of river-soaked London dirt. Finally, it forms and settles into the shape of a key. 

Crowley picks it up. It is a heavy, old-fashioned key, solidly real. It could be the first key. For securing your store of grain, your hoard of treasure, the gates of Eden. 

“What now?” Aziraphale asks. 

“Maybe it’s just the key to the potting shed,” he says, without much conviction. 

“You mean, that one?” 

There at the end of the garden. The same stone walls as the house, the same wash of white paint, but no bigger than a shed. It hadn’t been there a moment ago and had been there for centuries. 

They follow a path as it is created. It winds around a pool fed by open-mouthed cherubs and gargoyles. There is a mosaic in the Roman style on the floor of the pool. All the countries of the world are laid out, moving and changing as the sunlight dances on the surface of the water. Tiny red fish dart across the map, watched intently by the grey tabby. The demon in him savours the powerful energy coming off the water. He doesn’t know what it means and he sees Aziraphale frowning too. 

The path continues around grapevines, cherry trees and an untamed stretch of blackberry brambles, strawberries and raspberries. They pass through an insect storm in a wildflower patch before the path brings them to the door of the potting shed. It has a single dusty window which glows with an unearthly light. 

While the building seems as ancient as a mountain range, the door is newly painted blue. The blue of the angel’s eyes, virgin blue, ocean blue, Earth blue. The key, of course, turns easily in the lock. 

Among the bags of compost, seeds, bulbs and garden tools, a sword. It stands up against the wall with the spade and rake and broom, burning with a muted light. Crowley is not surprised. 

“But I gave it to a human,” Aziraphale says. “The lights -” 

“The lights are fine,” Crowley says. “It’s been given back to you. The sword is yours again.” 

“But how? Is it from Her? From the humans? Not Adam or it would be choc ice.” 

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” 

“But Crowley, I don’t want a sword.” 

“My darling angel, that’s precisely why you should have it.” 

“Oh, you’re a hopeless kind of demon. The wretched thing is following me around. How can I get rid of it?” 

“Aziraphale, you’ve rebelled against Heaven, you’ve defeated Hell, you’ve declared yourself defender of the Earth. This is your weapon.” 

Aziraphale gazes at him, hoping to find a chink in the logic of the argument, catch him out in a serpent lie and then just nods. 

“Of course.” 

“It doesn’t mean you have to go around chopping heads off. If we need it, we’ll know where it is. That’s all.” 

Aziraphale brightens. It is the word ‘we’ that cheers him. 

Crowley closes the door and locks it. He hands the key to Aziraphale who pushes it back. 

“You had better keep it, my love.” 

“Me? I don’t think -” 

“I trust your judgement more than anyone’s, certainly more than my own. When the time comes, I’ll need your courage and your wisdom. Please take it. I’ll need you there, Crowley.” 

Aziraphale creates a chain for the key and Crowley bows his head to receive it. He had made his promises long ago but at last they can be spoken aloud. He is taken into the angel’s arms as the clock across the Thames strikes an afternoon hour he loses count of. 

They had seen the Palace of Westminster built, he and his angel. And countless other palaces too, broken up for sheep pens now, or eroded to sand. They had seen this city rise and would see it fall. They had seen the seeds from a desert garden scatter on the winds and grow a world. In all their terrible darkness and dazzling light, in all their wild and flying colours, these children of Earth have always been their children. 

End

August 2019


End file.
